1998: Shaun's Diaries

Shaun Faris was the beloved heart of 1998: Sixty Days of Summer, the loud, loyal skater who could turn any moment into a joke and light up any room.

These diaries show what 1998 couldn't.

Written in the small hours of the same summer, his entries are messy, funny, filthy, tender, and brutal in their honesty. He's still the same Shaun readers fell for, but here you see the cost of becoming that boy.

His father's emotional abuse was quiet but relentless. Constant pressure, conditional approval, calm control that trained Shaun to anticipate rejection, entertain to earn affection, and never ask too much of anybody. The result is a boy whose confidence on the outside hides the permanent trial inside his own head, a boy who'd rather let a stranger use him in the woods than fear he's unlovable.

The damage runs through everything. The way he performs for approval. The way he clings and obsesses and spirals. The way he hooks up to be desired by strangers who will never know how broken he is. The way love makes him panic because he's convinced the real him will ruin it. The way he can't believe he's good enough.

And then there's his best friend Jorin, the centre of his world, the one person who sees the truth behind the performance. In these pages, Shaun cracks open, revealing the soft, furious, desperate truth underneath: how deeply he's in love with Jorin, how terrified he is that admitting it will destroy their lifelong friendship, how hard he fights to keep standing when his best friend's trauma becomes his own breaking point.

For readers of 1998, this is the person you know with the mask off, raw and inarticulate, trying his hardest not to break.

To be read after 1998: Sixty Days of Summer.